Kerry Abrams joined the University of Virginia faculty in 2005 and was promoted to full professor in 2010. Her primary teaching and research interests are in the areas of citizenship law, immigration law, constitutional law, legal history, family law, and gender and law. Abrams has written numerous articles on the intersection of immigration law and family law, the history of immigration law, and the marriage equality movement.

Abrams is a graduate of Swarthmore College, where she earned a B.A. in English literature with highest honors. She graduated with distinction from Stanford Law School, where she was president of the Moot Court Board. After law school, she clerked for Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and practiced law for several years in the litigation department of the New York City law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, primarily handling intellectual property and employment discrimination cases. From 2002-05, she was acting assistant professor of lawyering at the New York University School of Law. In June 2014, she became vice provost for faculty affairs for the University of Virginia.